New member smoking pork butt

[BassetHound]

As far as the marinade, I think I will still do that tonight. My wife will thank me if it has a sour flavor on the outside as she loves sour and acidic taste, and me I will take the chance but sparingly. I am applying a rub tomorrow morning.

I will also not spritz and do my absolute best not to open the lid. I do have a digital meat thermometer with cable that can extend outside of the smoker, so I can monitor the temp without opening the lid.

 

[mattkins99]

Oh, one last thing I remember hearing/reading somewhere that's been good advice for me. When temp drifts high or low and you must adjust things, make a small change to your controls (gas knob for me, vents for you) and wait 5 minutes before touching the smoker again. There's usually a big delay from input to result in temperature so you need to see where things settle before you go messing with it again. If you don't you'll be chasing temperatures a lot.

 

[El Ropo]

if temp swings are your concern, place a digital thermo in your oven, set temp to 350, then monitor the temps on the digital readout. You'll find that a household oven has huge swings in temp. If your cooker is goin up and down by 30-40 degrees, don't sweat it. If it starts to climb in temp to 300, don't sweat it. Just adjust the cook time. Chasing cooking temps is a waste of energy, let the magic happen. Choking a cooker down to 230, when it wants to run at 270 is one of the largest sins in my BBQ world

 

[BassetHound]

Just under 6hrs in, Internal temps are around 150-160 range. I have been pretty happy with my mods to the SNG. The temps have been much higher and much more consistent. 225-250 the entire time and I have only had to touch it twice thus far.